Comments on: John Ruskin: picturesque tourism, poverty, love, life and sex

By: christine

christine — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 06:30:14 +0000

Do you mean if they could have wished for the talent to be a sportsman? [ http://www.suite101.com/content/what-it-takes-to-become-an-elite-athlete-a94818 ]

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 05:51:30 +0000

Given my own interests, I should be able to understand the English enthusiasm for history. But I can’t.
If I think round the people I know it is hard to think of anyone who would have chosen to be a knight. My guess is that they have become sportsmen.

By: Christine

Christine — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 05:28:12 +0000

Quite right, different eras produce different career opportunities. In the middle ages choosing ‘knight’ as a career path was possibly a little easier than it is today. I suppose a similar minded young person in contemporary times would probably join the SAS, the diplomatic corps or become an Olympic equestrian or even a music performer as you suggest.

Tim Brooks is an American TV historian, so I suppose the role is wider than the UK. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Brooks_(television_historian) ]

However it seems the celebrity historian is a UK phenomenon.[ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/the-history-men-672153.html ]

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 06:39:23 +0000

I suppose ‘history’ used to mean the story of kings, queens and battles – in which case a new Ruskin could defend his old position.
When bored, in meetings or doctors’ waiting rooms, I like to look at the faces of strangers and guess what they would have done if they had lived eg in the Middle Ages. Ruskin would surely have been a priest, and in the modern world I suppose he would be a university lecturer and, perhaps, a presenter of TV programmes. He had that curious combination of being shy and yet enjoying the glamour of a public performance.
We have a lot of TV historians in the UK and I wonder if it is mainly a UK role? The present generation is heavily influenced by Simon Sharma and ape his every mannerism, without matching his perceptiveness. Some of them are terrible: so interested in boosting their trivial egos that they never let you see a famous place without it being obstructed by their grinning jaws and Sharma-imitations. They rarely bother to tell you the name of the famous place. For them it is merely a ‘location’ for their performance – a film set, a step on a road to personal glory. They could have much more useful lives as Elvis Presley impersonators, or selling ice-cream in cinemas.

By: Christine

Christine — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 03:38:15 +0000

Difficult to say given that in Ruskin’s Lectures on Landscape he conceived of America as a country “without any history”.

The conceptual leaps to the modern world would seem to be quite substantial. But being a man of intellect and curiosity I suppose he would have adapted.

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 05:48:08 +0000

How would Ruskin have lived if born in our own time? I’d like to think that he would give his attention to landscape architecture. This is where he began, with John Claudius Loudon as his first editor, and he might have continued with the subject if he had seen its present potential. And would the openness of the modern world have let him get round his awkwardness with Effie? I hope so.

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 05:21:57 +0000

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?161327-Pubic-Shaving-Trend-Baffles-Experts

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 05:21:31 +0000

Here is some comment on the subject from “Der Spiegel”.

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 04:34:23 +0000

Ruskin was perhaps born too early. All of my visits to German saunas over the last years have confirmed that almost no one much under the age of 30 has pubic hair any more. If they do, it is usually cut into artistic shapes and designs. Perhaps this would have appealed to the artist in him.

By: Christine

Christine — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 06:50:49 +0000

The problems with our ideas of poverty might be summarised with the question ‘Is this man poor?’ [ http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/tukaroto-matutaera-potatau-te-wherowhero-tawhiao-0 ]